


in falling together

by youcouldmakealife



Series: in taking it apart [11]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 17:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike doesn’t know what he’s really expecting, but it’s not a text the night before the game, <i>im in minnyanapolis</i>, which is almost excruciatingly painful to get, just for the butchering of Minneapolis alone, and immediately following, <i>can i c u?</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in falling together

Liam texts him in January. It isn’t like Mike’s been staring at his phone, he hasn’t necessarily been waiting--for all he knows Liam just asked for his number to know he could have it, always does that sort of casual cruelty without realizing it. Christmas passes, and he doesn’t hear from Liam; Rogers either, except for the Rogers Family Update Plus Santa Hats, and Mike rings in the goddamn new year sober and hanging out with his mom, which is the most fucking depressing thing to ever happen to him, and he has a shit-ton to choose from.

But just under two weeks in, when Detroit’s due in Minnesota a week, not that Mike’s checked, he gets a text from a number he doesn’t recognize, _can i c u next week?_ , and then, kind of redundantly, _its liam_. Like Mike has ever lowered himself to text anyone else who speaks purely in text-speak. Well, his brother, but that’s family. He can’t even tell if Liam was too lazy to put an apostrophe in the ‘its’ or genuinely didn’t know one was supposed to be there. It’s fucking depressing.

Fucking depressing, shit poor grammar, and enough to knock Mike flat, or near enough. Mike hasn’t seen the kid since he wouldn’t let him argue his way out being dumped, hasn’t heard anything but a voicemail Liam left a month later, drunk enough to slur, which takes a lot, voice breaking right down the middle, wide open, because he’s never learned how to protect himself. Never puts his hands up until after the first blow.

It takes five hours before Mike can even settle on his response, a single word, _Okay_ , and nothing else. He’s almost forty, he shouldn’t be fixating on a single word sent across state lines, it’s fucking pathetic. 

For the next week, he’s horribly distracted. Lets his mother clean his place, even though it drives him up the fucking wall that she insists on it, like he’s living in squalor. His therapist gets him talking about the hockey season, and he doesn’t even realise he’s exposed the fact he’s still tuned in until he’s arguing the North Stars’ playoff chances with her, because she couldn’t be more blind if she was doing it on purpose. She was probably doing it on purpose. He hoped she was doing it on purpose. He doesn’t want to put his mental health in the hands of someone who didn’t understand ROW. 

Detroit wins its two games preceding the match-up, and the North Stars lose two in regulation and one in overtime, which is pretty telling. It’s a matinee game, something special for the children, or some shit. Mike doesn’t know what he’s really expecting, but it’s not a text the night before the game, _im in minnyanapolis_ , which is almost excruciatingly painful to get, just for the butchering of Minneapolis alone, and immediately following, _can i c u?_.

Mike doesn’t even wait more than three minutes, and that’s just because he gets a call from his mother and spends the following two minutes trying to get off the phone. The _Yes_ he sends requires moderately less thought than the _Okay_ from before, but his hands are fucking shaking, adrenaline, like after a fight, and it’s pathetic.

Liam texts him an address, a bar attached to the hotel visiting teams tend to stay, and Mike almost turns around a half dozen times on the drive over, because this is fucking stupid. Mike’s never been the kind of guy to have civilized, masochistic dinners with exes, the kind where you pretend you’re both above the hurt, and spend the entire time picking at old wounds. Except Liam isn’t that kind of kid, will go straight for the jugular if he means to hurt you, so Mike wonders what this is for him, curiosity, maybe, or closure. Whatever it is, Mike isn’t going to fuck it up for the kid, he deserves better.

Liam’s already at the bar when Mike gets there, a table for two, the lighting low and romantic, softening his face into something that Mike’s used to, the razor sharp cut of his cheekbones giving way under the effect so that he’s as baby-faced as he was when he was trying to goad Mike into fucking him that first time. The thought sits hollow in him.

Mike slides into the seat across from him, and Liam looks up, startled, like he hadn’t been expecting Mike at all.

“Hey,” Mike says, when it’s clear Liam won’t say something first, all big blues and slightly parted lips, fucking bambi eyes.

“I didn’t really think you’d come,” Liam says.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Mike says, and Liam rolls his eyes at him, which is normal, if nothing else is.

When a waiter comes by Liam orders a beer, which feels strange until Mike realises Liam’s legal in America, has been for over a year now. Mike gets club soda and orange juice, and Liam frowns at him.

“Can’t drink anymore,” Mike says, flat, when Liam doesn’t quit looking at him, and then Liam’s cheeks flush, embarrassed, averting his eyes, which makes Mike feel like shit, because that’s the last thing he wants to do.

“I don’t have to--” Liam starts, when their drinks come. 

“Drink your fucking beer, Liam,” Mike says, and Liam takes a slow sip. Mike can’t get over how different Liam looks, now that Mike’s across from him, the way all the baby fat has melted away, how much older he looks, how far from the kid Mike met. He fills out his clothes better, has put on muscle in the places he always struggled with bulking up. Mike’s losing his own definition, still broad but filling out in worse ways, and his hair’s going a bit gray at the temples, which must be from his dad, since his mom’s yet to get a single gray hair, despite the shit she’s been through, but other than that, he’s about the same. Liam’s practically transformed.

Liam puts his beer down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
Guess Liam’s not taking it easy on an old man.

Mike doesn’t bother to play stupid, it’s insulting to the both of them. “You didn’t need to know.”

“Bullshit,” Liam says, voice raising despite himself, clearly, because he’s quiet again when he continues. “Bullshit I didn’t need to know, we practically fucking lived together.”

Mike doesn’t say what comes to mind immediately, that he wasn’t the one insisting on playing house, because it wasn’t like he complained at the time. Didn’t want to. Liked it more than he should have, mostly, until his health went south and Liam started playing nursemaid too. He takes a sip of his drink instead of saying anything at all.

“Did you know when you did it?” Liam asks.

Mike frowns. “Did I know what?” he asks.

“Did you know how bad things were?” Liam asks, even, none of the hitch that was usually in his voice when he was upset, though it was written plain as day on his face that he was. “When you ended it.”

“It doesn’t matter, Liam,” Mike says, suddenly tired. 

“It matters to me,” Liam says stubbornly.

“Yeah,” Mike says, because he’s no liar. “I knew. And what would you have done if you knew? What were you going to do, hang around on a dead end team trying to play fucking nurse with a dead end player? You didn’t need to know.”

“It was my choice to make,” Liam says, and there’s the waver, there, almost soft enough to miss.

“And you would have made a shitty choice,” Mike says. 

Liam’s jaw sets, and he takes a sip of beer, slow, like he’s trying not to say the first thing that comes to mind either. Mike’s got a therapist to thank for that, but maybe Liam’s just growing up.

“This was a bad idea,” Mike says, because Liam’s hurting, it’s written all over him, and Mike doesn’t feel much better.

“Would you come to the game tomorrow?” Liam asks, soft. “If I got you a ticket.”

“No,” Mike says, and Liam looks so crushed that he continues even though he’d prefer not to. “I haven’t watched a game since--I don’t watch hockey.”

“Oh,” Liam says, then looks at a loss.

“I should go,” Mike says, shrugging into his coat.

“No,” Liam blurts out, and then, when Mike pauses, a little quieter, “No. Stay. Please.”

Mike shrugs his coat back off. 

“How’s Minnesota?” Liam asks. 

Mike raises his eyebrows, a clear _are we seriously doing fucking small talk?_ They barely did that even when they were, well--whatever they were. Whatever they’re not now.

Liam raises his eyebrows back, a _you bet_ , with a hint of the brattiness Mike knew he couldn’t have shaken completely, so integral to Liam’s character he’d be someone else completely without it. Maybe a less annoying person, but not Liam anymore, and Mike likes Liam, along with everything else, along with the tangled fucking knot of whatever it is he feels for him. He likes the kid, he’s always liked the kid, and he’s missed him.

Liam actually fucking makes him do small talk. And the bitch of it is, Mike almost finds himself liking it. There’s shit neither of them’s saying: Mike has no idea if Liam knows Rogers mentioned boyfriends, but he’s sure as shit not saying anything about them, and after the first couple times Mike shuts him the fuck down, Liam doesn’t ask anything health related. 

Liam gets animated when he talks about Detroit, and not just about the people, but about the actual game, because Detroit’s game is practically in a different league than Edmonton’s. They’d been knocked out in the first round the year before, but that was an unexpected result, and Liam’s got hopes, got the eye on the prize, got a spot on the third line of a team that’s stacked enough right now, but may bump him up in the future, when they’re weaker or he’s stronger. He’s playing hockey, is the thing, _real_ hockey, not the shit they played in Edmonton, and if Mike wanted some validation for his choices, well, it’s right there. 

It’s supposed to make him feel better. It should make him feel better. It doesn’t, really. It’s not that he doesn’t want the kid to do something with his talent, to be _happy_ , that’s the whole fucking point, but it’s one thing to be satisfied with that, to know he’s done basically the only non-shitty thing he could have done for Liam, and it’s another thing to sit across a table from him and not touch him, besides when their knees brush under the too small table, because he gave up that right years ago and never deserved it in the first place. 

Liam switches to water after his first beer, and Mike would argue, but it’s not worth it, the kid can successfully out-stubborn him any day of the week. Mike hits the bathroom after his second drink, and when he’s washing his hands, questioning the mirror on whether he’s losing his fucking _mind_ , Liam comes in. It’s a damn good thing Mike was asking those questions _silently_. 

“He’s going to think we ditched,” Mike says.

“Your coat’s there,” Liam says, flippant. “And I paid the bill.”

Mike pauses, before going to the paper towel dispenser. “Heading back?” he asks, trying to sound casual. Maybe failing. Probably failing.

“Can I come home with you?” Liam asks.

“That’s a piss poor idea, Liam,” Mike says quietly.

“I don’t care,” Liam says. Of course he doesn’t. He never does. “Can I come home with you?”

Liam’s managed to keep his voice casual in a way that Mike couldn’t manage, but he’s a line of tension, practically vibrating with it, from where Mike can tell he wants to bounce on the balls of his feet, to where his hands are clenched. Like he’s picking a fight. 

“Don’t you have curfew?” Mike asks.

“ _Mike_ ,” Liam says, and the whole facade’s just gone, until he’s all frustration and coiled up energy, until he’s the same kid who tried to bluff his way through losing his virginity, to goad Mike into getting balls deep in him. Mike has little doubt that’s the way this is headed, and it’s a piss poor idea, he knows he’s right about that. He just doesn’t know if he cares, overmuch, beyond how he knows this is going to wreck him all over again. And that’s a problem for tomorrow.

“Get your coat,” Mike says, finally.

“I didn’t bring one,” Liam says, and this place may be next to the hotel, but it’s _January in Minnesota_. Fuck, Mike doesn’t know how Liam survived without him.

“Of course you fucking didn’t,” Mike mutters, and Liam grins at him, unrepentant, the first grin Mike’s seen all night, and one he’d forgotten the impact of, before heading out of the bathroom.

Mike follows, because he can’t do anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr!](youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com)


End file.
